


Wake With You

by AstridMyrna



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fear of Drowning, Medical Trauma, Rough Kissing, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 11:16:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16575413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridMyrna/pseuds/AstridMyrna
Summary: After cracking three ribs from a pneumonia-induced cough, Cassian is sent to the med bay for a dip in the bacta tank. Jyn is there to keep an eye on things just to see everything go wrong.





	Wake With You

**Author's Note:**

> There's a reference to a prompt fill I did if you want to read it first, but it's not necessary to understand this story:  
> https://thegiddyowl.tumblr.com/post/179236435347/for-the-prompts-please-may-i-ask-for-one-of-the
> 
> Also special thanks to tincantelephone/@cats-and-metersticks for being my beta for this one!

“You’re going to be fine,” Jyn told Cassian, then lifted his fingers to her lips that felt cool against his skin. Her eyes traced over his knuckles, down his arm, up the sleeve of his medical gown, and settled on his face. “Just fine.”

At least, he’d be better than where he was now: on bed rest due to pneumonia and a couple of cracked ribs from coughing so hard. His howl of pain woke up them both up at 0200 that morning. Several hours later, he was now just about prepped to be sedated and submerged into a bacta tank to heal them. He was on some sort of pain killer now, but his chest still felt sore and it ached if he breathed too deeply. Hopefully the bacta would help with the pneumonia too, but he’d be happy enough for the healed ribs.

He stretched out a finger and gently brushed over one of the dark bags under her eyes. “I’ll be a few hours. You could get some sleep then.”

She shook her head. “I won’t leave you by yourself.”

He smiled and, not for the first time, nor the last, felt like the luckiest man in the world even though his stomach was in knots. He didn’t tell her, but he hated the idea of being submerged in a sealed tank almost as much as she did. He was careful to put on a calm, neutral face when Dr. Emino explained the procedure to them, squeezing Jyn’s hand when she squeezed first. He hoped that Jyn bought his act, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she saw past it. She knew him in ways he never dreamed of sharing with anyone else.

The plastic curtain rippled as two nurses and Dr. Emino entered the closed off area, one of the nurses wheeling an IV. Dr. Emino, a black woman whose black, curly bun was accented by a streak of silver, greeted them both.  Cassian squeezed Jyn’s hand first, even though he trusted this doctor more than the others in the medbay, as she had been their doctor when recovering from Scarif and she seemed to have followed them out here on Hoth. He breathed as deep he as could as one of the nurses swabbed his arm for the IV needle that glittered in the harsh white overhead light.

“We’re all ready to get started, are you?” Dr. Emino asked cheerfully.

Cassian nodded and brought their tangled fists to his chest. “I’ll be fine, Jyn.”

To his surprise, she leaned over and kissed him, but he was suddenly too tired to kissed her back.

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” she said.

* * *

Jyn kissed Cassian’s brow, even though she knew he couldn’t feel it anymore. His fingers slipped out of her hand and crumpled against his chest. He looked so tired as he slept probably the deepest sleep he had in weeks. It had started as a cold that was common enough at Echo One, but he developed a fever and a wet cough that grew worse and worse, waking them both up in the middle of the night and leaving Cassian exhausted in the morning. It wasn’t until Draven ordered Cassian to go to the medbay after he fell asleep during a meeting that he was diagnosed with pneumonia. He was sent back to his quarters with meds and a strict order of bedrest until the infection cleared up. Jyn was more than happy to make Cassian follow orders and only allowed him to leave their bed for the ‘fresher.

She brought him his food three times a day and slept in a bedroll next to him at night (he offered to sleep on the floor and she just laughed. She loved him but he was too sick to share their bed). On patrols she sometimes found a fragrant branch of dulu leaves that she hung in the corner of the shower so that its sharp, citrusy scent perfumed the steam as it rose from the gallons of boiling hot water she cranked out of the shower. The steam and the dulu would help him breathe clearly for a couple of precious minutes before he started to wheeze again.

It had been a hard week and a half, but she kept both their spirits up by reminding him that he was getting a little better every day. And he was, until she woke up in the middle of the night to a sound she never wanted to hear again. Cassian moaned as if he had been shot, but he said something about coughing until he felt something crack. She cursed herself for sleeping through his coughing, but only said encouraging things as she helped bundle him up for another trip to the medbay.

“It’d be best if you waited outside, Jyn,” Dr. Emino said, bringing Jyn back to the present. “One of the protocol droids can take you to his tank.”

“All right,” Jyn said, her fingers lingering over his for a moment before she forced herself to walk away.

A chrome-plated protocol droid lead her to one of the private chambers in the medbay where the empty bacta tank stood center stage. The octagonal chamber was more like a theater, since it included plush seats on one side and a podium on the other. Jyn sat in the front row, her legs crossed and her hands folded as she waited for them to bring Cassian.

“Is there anything I can bring you?” the protocol droid asked.

“Water, please,” Jyn mumbled.

She pulled her data pad out of her belt and typed in a brief message to K-2SO, who was currently waiting outside of medbay since he was banned from entering it ever since he gave a few nurses some bruises on his warpath to find Cassian as he recovered from Scarif all those years ago. As soon as Jyn sent the message, Kay noted it as read, but didn’t respond. At least she wasn’t the only one with irrational worries about the bacta tanks that had saved Cassian’s life and hers before. The main difference from then and now was that they were unconscious when they were picked up from Scarif and submerged. This time she would witness it and her mind went in all the wrong directions in how this would end.

Without meaning to, her head lolled back on the chair and she closed her eyes so they’d stop watering from so much sterile white light.

When she opened her eyes, Cassian was half-naked save for his white briefs and bobbing in the bubbling tank like a plastene bath toy. Dr. Emino stood near him, her fingers tapping away at her datapad. A surge of rage swept over Jyn. Why did no one wake her up when they put him in the tank? But then she saw the black breathing mask strapped over his nose and mouth. She saw how he gently bumped into the sides of the tank as the current pushed him back and forth like--

 _He’s not dead, just asleep. Not dead, just asleep_ , Jyn thought as she rubbed her tired eyes.

“How long has he been in there?” Jyn rasped, her throat dry from her sleeping with her mouth open.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“So another two hours and forty-five to go.”

The doctor nodded. “And another fifteen to drain the tank, another fifteen to clean him up. When we clean him up we'll have you wait by his bed so you'll be there when he wakes up.”

Jyn shifted her weight from one foot to the next, arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Why aren’t there bubbles coming out of his mask?”

“Because of the pneumonia and the sedative, we inserted a ventilation tube instead of the breathing mask, that way in case he has trouble breathing, the machine will do it for him.”

“Right. Right, you told us, sorry,” Jyn said, wiping her sore eyes.

“It’s fine. I threw a lot of information at you in a short span of time, so if you need anything else, feel free to ask.”

Jyn felt herself smile despite the prickly anxiety that settled in her stomach. She felt damn lucky that they were given the only doctor they trusted on such short notice. She was much more preferable to the burly 2-1B unit that marched inside the theater to take up his station at the podium. Dr. Emino pointed her datapad at him.

“This is 2-1B07, who will monitor Cassian’s condition while I go check on my other patients. Ask him any questions you need answered, and I’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

“Thanks,” Jyn mumbled as the doctor stepped outside.

Jyn eyed the droid, his dull gray chassis glowing blue-green from the light of the bacta, and stepped right up to the glass of the tank. The droid ignored her and continued to poke at the podium with its three-fingered claws. Jyn places a hand on the glass, surprisingly cool despite the fact that she could see from the digital thermometer at the bottom of the tank that the bacta inside roiled at 95.6˚.  

“Please do not touch the glass,” 2-1B07 said in his deep, almost throaty voice that echoed down the ridged tube attached to its face, making Jyn jump.

“Sure,” she huffed as she stuck her hands under her armpits.

The droids yellow eyes brightened. “Patient Cassian Andor’s vitals are at normal levels. Ribs six, seven and eight are currently in phase one of repair. Patient expected to leave bacta treatment at original time.”

Jyn stared at him, trying to figure out where to place him. “Aren’t you usually a surgery droid?”

“Yes, but my modular limbs are multifunctional and my current assignment is to monitor Patient Cassian Andor’s vitals. I will provide verbal updates every fifteen minutes.”

Jyn looked up at Cassian’s face, the worry that usually stitched across his brow gone or hidden by his bloom of hair that swirled over his eyes. Maybe it was the light, but even his under-eye bags that carried weeks of sleeplessness had smoothed themselves out.  She let out a long sigh through her nose and plodded back to her chair where a glass of lukewarm water waited for her on the arm rest.

“’Preciate it,” she said, then chugged down her water, leaned her head back, and dozed off.

Dr. Emino still hadn’t returned when Jyn woke up sometime later, but her datapad was bright with messages from Kay and Bodhi, both asking how Cassian was faring. Jyn rubbed the sleep out of her eyes to see Cassian still floating and asleep, but something was wrong. Tremors riddled his body, making him throw his head back and his arms twitch at odd angles.

“What’s going on?” Jyn demanded, her breath misting the glass.

“Phase three of repair.”

“Why is he moving like that? Is he awake?”

“Patient is currently unconscious. Body spasms are common during this stage of tissue regeneration.”

Cassian jerked as if he had been kicked in the chest, but a stream of bubbles flew behind him and propelled him away from the glass. His skin looked paler, almost bloated--

“How long has he been in there?” Jyn asked, her throat dry.

“Two hours and forty-two  minutes, standard.”

Three minutes. He only needed to be in there three more minutes until he could leave his tank. She went to her datapad and told everyone who had been asking about him (Kay first, of course).

“Where’s Dr. Emino?” she asked as she sent out the last message.

“Right here, right on time,” the doctor announced as she walked in with another prodecal droid and a small army of white-clad nurses rolling in a stretcher. “Sorry I didn’t wake you early, sergeant, but I had been popping in and out and checking in on the captain, hadn’t I 2-1B?”

“Affirmative.”

“I’m not sure what 2-1B07 has told you, but Captain Andor’s vital have been strong and stable this entire time. After he’s recovered, we’ll take some scans to see how well he’s healed. In the meantime, if you want to stay and watch, I’m going to need to stand over there,” Dr. Emino said, pointing to the right side of the room. “Once we get him on the stretcher and wheel him out, L-3PO will escort you back to his room.”

“It will be my pleasure!” chirruped the silver-plated droid, “We will wait to the side, well away from the nurses as they work. Come along, Sergeant Erso.”

Jyn followed the droid to the side, her eyes never leaving Cassian’s frame as it twitched and spasmed. The bubbles stopped flowing, and Cassian drifted down until his feet hit the floor.

“Draining stage commencing,” 2-1B07 announced and pressed a button that flashed yellow.

The nurses finished setting up the stretcher. One of them held a thick, fluffy white towel that looked softer than the scratchy gray wool blankets Cassian and Jyn slept under. It would be nice to share his bed again. She missed how he tucked her into his side every night and kissed her neck to wake her up the next morning. On the night she came to his quarters late, either from patrol or a long-ass mission, he helped her strip off her clothes and massage her shoulders in the shower before they went to bed. She adored it, but she felt overwhelmed by his tenderness she didn’t know how to return, but--

\--but the tank still wasn’t draining.

Dr. Emino was at 2-1B07’s side now, whispering to him and darting her gray eyes between the podium and the tank. As the minutes dragged on, Dr. Emino’s face fell into a neutral mask, the wrinkle on her forehead betraying her frustration, while the chatting nurses fell silent.

“What’s going on?” Jyn called out, her feet already carrying her toward the podium.

“You shouldn’t--ow!” a blond male nurse said, trying to block Jyn’s path but getting shoved out of the way.

Dr. Emino didn’t flinch when Jyn stormed right up to her face. “There appears to have been a malfunction with the drainage system, so the bacta won’t drain. When the bacta drains, that’s when the tank unlocks--”

Jyn pounded a fist against the podium. “Are you telling me he’s _stuck in there?_ ”

“Please remove your hand from the control panel,” S-1B07 said in his usual dull tone.

“Temporarily, yes,” Dr. Emino said. “The top does unlock. S-1B07, I’ll need you to to unlatch the top of the tank manually so we can take out Andor. All right, everyone, prepare yourselves for a manual extraction.”

The nurses broke apart, two of them helping a third out of her scrubs and into a diving suit, while a fourth pulled out an oxygen tank and diving equipment from under the stretcher. S-B107’s reached to around the top lip of the tank and slowly press a series of buttons. Cassian sat with his knees to his chest, his head gently bobbing up and down.

“Don’t you have an emergency release?” Jyn snapped.

“We do, but this isn’t an emergency situation.”

Jyn whirled on her and got in her face. “He’s trapped in there and that _isn’t_ an emergency?”

Dr. Emino held up both hands to shield her from Jyn’s rage. “If we pull the emergency release, then we would lose all that bacta in the tank right now. Currently, Cassian is attached to a ventilator and his vital signs are good. He’s not in any immediate physical danger that would require emergency release. It’s just going to take a little longer to get him out.”

Jyn bit her lips together so hard that she could feel her pulse gallop between them. If Dr. Emino had been any other doctor, Jyn would have taken the scuba tank and busted the bacta tank wide open by now. However, she trusted Dr. Emino. During every step of their recovery she didn’t bullshit anything then, and she still hadn’t now. So Jyn decided to trust Dr. Emino and took a few steps back so the med staff could get him out. She tried to focus on Cassian, who at this point did look to have fallen asleep without meaning to.

A hydraulic hiss inspired the nurses to cheer and the doctor to smile, but that smile faded as she looked down at Cassian. Jyn took a step forward, trying to see what the doctor was seeing, but then the lid clunked to a halt after only being raised a few inches.

“The lid is jammed,” S-1B07 pronounced over the crowd’s gasps and groans. “I will need lubricant and a tool to provide leverage in order to open it.”

“We have that!” Emino shouted and ran to the the podium to pull out a tool kit.

“Thank you.”

While the S-1B unit slowly the hinges of the lid, Dr. Emino’s impatience slipped through. She kept looking down at Cassian and pursing her lips. “We need to move a little faster, S-1B.”

Jyn stared at Cassian again, but still couldn’t see what she should be looking for. In two steps Jyn grabbed Dr. Emino by the meat of her arm. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Dr. Emino let out a breath. “It’s not life-threatening--”

“Then tell me what it is.”

She swallowed and answered in her irritatingly soft tone. “His sedative is wearing off, and when it wears out, then he’ll wake up.”

Jyn wheezed like she had been punched in the chest. “No. Not in there.”

“Like I said before, he can survive in there for a while, but if he wakes up he will probably panic. When that happens, I need you to stay calm so that he can stay calm. Can you do that? Because if you can’t, then I need you to wait outside until we can get him out.”

Jyn clamped her mouth shut and nodded once. Her fingers wrapped around her kyber crystal as she kneeled down to Cassian’s level, silently praying that they would get him out before he woke up. The droid used the crowbar at three points along the rim of the tank, prying up by barely a millimeter of before going around the rim again.

As the minutes scraped by, the worry he carried began to stitch over his forehead and around his eyes. His brows knitted together like they did when on the rare mornings she woke up before him and watch him come out of a deep sleep. Jyn’s thighs began to burn, so she sat bow-legged with her nose to the glass.

“Please do not touch the glass,” the droid politely asked again as he passed her.

She pressed a hand right over where his floated, and tamped down the urge to just punch through the glass and pull him out.

“ETA on removing lid, S-1B?” Dr. Emino said, at the podium with her eyes glued to the control panel.

“12 minutes, fifty seconds.”

Dr. Emino pursed her lips. “Sedative will wear off in two minutes. Sergeant Erso, are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on, Dr. Emino?” asked the nurse in the wetsuit, who slung the oxygen canister over her shoulders.

Dr. Emino’s voice was stern and loud. “In two minutes, the patient’s sedative will wear off and the patient will become conscious. There is a good chance that he will begin to panic, especially since he was intubated and he will want to cough the tube out, which is why we have Sergeant Erso here to calm him down. Nurse Renyl, put down the canister for now. I’ll have S-1B07 extract him if he’s panicked, but if he’s calm and can’t swim to the top--”

“He can’t,” Jyn cut in, her voice tight enough to snap. “He doesn’t know how.”

Dr. Emino rapped her fingers. “Well, then. Sixty seconds until sedative wears off.”

A cold hush fell over the room, and Jyn could feel all their eyes on Cassian, one of Intelligence’s top operatives. He had survived much worse than this, had been tortured in ways they didn’t want to imagine, and she could practically taste their curiosity, even from Dr. Emino, to see how the battle-hardened Rebel spy would react. But they never heard Cassian’s scratchy pleas for help when he was trapped in a free-floating escape pod, his desperate, weeping chant of “I love you” to Jyn that slowed and stuttered between gasps until it stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the glass. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Cassian opened his eyes. Half lidded at first, but then then popped wide open. His feet slipped under him and he flailed, his hands scratching at his throat and breathing mask.

“Cassian!” Jyn shouted, banging at the glass. “Cassian, look at me!”

She slammed against the glass, trying to get him to stop for a moment to look at her, but he managed to kick himself upright in his scramble for the surface.  His arms stretched over his head, his fingers just piercing the air and splashing bacta over the lid, but the propulsion from his kick wasn’t enough. He sank, his legs flailing to find a grip to pull him up again. His hands scratched at his face again as his throat contracted.

“Hit the emergency release!” Jyn shrieked as she ran for leapt for the podium, but two of the nurses grappled her. “He’s drowning! He’s dying!”

“Pulse is elevated but he’s still able to breathe, the intubation is just deeply uncomfortable--” Dr. Emino shouted back. “You have to trust me, Jyn!”

Jyn twisted her head back and saw that his arms, still reaching for the sky, went limp. His head fell forward, dark hair veiling his face as his dull eyes drifted shut.

She didn’t hear what Dr. Emino said next. Jyn stomped on on foot of one nurse holding her and elbowed the other one in the face before she lunged at the doctor, knocking her into the wall. Jyn scanned the podium and found the big red button with a label that read “EMERGENCY”. She slammed it down with an open palm, triggering red warning lights above and a whooping alarm, but the glass didn’t budge.

There wasn’t time to figure out what the fuck was jamming up this time. Spotting the canister, Jyn charged for it before the nurse could even blink. The other nurses held back as Jyn bashed it against the glass, but it bounced back without a scratch. She roared as she threw the canister aside at S-1B07’s feet, who lowered his crowbar after pushing up the lid.

“Sergeant Erso, I must insist that--”

“Shut up and give me that!” Jyn yelled as she pulled out the crowbar from between his curve claws.

In one swing the first layer of glass shattered and the nurses wailed at her to stop. They tried to rush her but fell back as she swiped at them. S-1B07 grabbed her, but with one pull her shirt tore into strips and she was free to run to the opposite side of the tank. Cracks webbed out from where she landed on her next two swings.

“Jyn, don’t!” Dr. Emino gasped as she pushed herself up.

The crowbar punched through the web, and a gush of bacta knocked her off her feet when she pulled it out. She sputtered and spat out the sickly sweet slime and wiped it from her eyes. Cassian laid in a crumpled heap only a few feet away from her, the taut ridged tube attached to his mask holding his head up. She crawled to his side, splashing bits of glass and bacta, and tried to tear the breathing apparatus off his face. She managed to unhook the bands that attached the hose to his face, but when she tried to pull the thick tube out of his mouth, his eyes flew open and he writhed under her.

“Let me do it,” Dr. Emino said, close enough for Jyn to throw glass in her eyes.

“You’ve done enough!” Jyn snarled.

“I know, Jyn, I have and I’m sorry, but I know how to take that tube out quickly and without damaging his throat.  You don’t. I just need you to hold him.”

Jyn huffed, but the doctor had a point. “Fine. But do it fast.”

Dr. Ermino fell to her knees and within moments she had eased out the thicker tube and gently pulled out the translucent noodle-thin tube as long as her arm. Cassian’s raised his head, his eyes screwed tight as he silently gagged, but he gasped in relief when the tube was finally out. Dr. Ermino bundled the tubes in one hand and stepped back.

Jyn pulled him into her lap, his skin still warm from the extended bath. He dark eyes blinked slowly at the ceiling as he gasped for deeper and deeper breaths. One of his hands grappled Jyn’s collar while the other splayed over his chest.

“Cassian, can you breathe?” Jyn asked, her finger biting deep into his shoulder.

His next breath wrung out a sob that filled the room.

She pulled him into her chest and rocked him, her hand cradling his face. “I’m here, Cassian. I’m here.”

His cries were strangled by a series of coughs that wracked his body and he slipped in her grasp. He breathed too fast, his pulse fluttering under her thumb, and she feared he’d pass out again.

“Look at me, Cassian,” Jyn ordered, clutching his head against her shoulder. “Don’t look at anything else, just me.”

He stared at her, his pupils so wide that they swallowed the warm brown of his eyes. She forced herself to breathe slow, controlled breaths that pressed her wet shirt against his heaving chest. He didn’t blink, but maybe the bacta in his eyes didn’t make them dry out as quickly as hers.

“Jyn?” he breathed.

“Yes, Cassian. I’m here.”

His long sigh of relief warmed her throat as he finally blinked, color returning to his eyes.. Jyn combed his hair away from his eyes and pressed her forehead against his. He mumbled her name in a short burst of Festian. She eased her rocking down to a gentle sway, her buzz of adrenaline draining away like the last bit of bacta leaking from the tank.

“I’m here. I’m here,” she whispered as his grasp on his shirt loosened.

She only broke eye contact with Cassian when she heard the familiar stomp and sarcastic drawl of K-2SO.

“What. Happened.”

* * *

Cassian woke up warmer than he expected to be in the med bay. He opened his eyes and discovered that he wasn't in the med bay at all, but in his dimly lit quarters and in his bed with more blankets than he remembered having piled on top of him. What made the bed warm, though, was Jyn sleeping next to him in a similar white tank and briefs he wore, her head on his shoulder and her arms and legs wrapped around him. Her dark, messy hair webbed over face, scrubbed of bacta and make-up and grime. He imagined nuzzling her plush, pink cheek like it was a ripe snow peach first to wake her before having a taste of her lips--

“You’re awake,” K-2SO said, the volume on his voice modular several levels lower than normal.

Cassian snapped his head up to see K-2SO standing right at his bedside. He swallowed the stickiness in his mouth, wincing as it slid down his sore throat.

“Ice chip?” Kay offered, already picking one from the small silver bowl on the nightstand table. “Dr. Emino told to me to give you these one at a time if Jyn was still asleep.”

Cassian wanted to thank him, but his mouth was too dry and he was trying to wrestle his arm out from the blankets without disturbing Jyn. Kay pressed the ice against his lips.

“It’s best to keep all of your limbs under the blankets for the time being. Open your mouth.”

Cassian smirked and did as he was told, and moved his hand to cover Jyn’s soft fist on his chest.  He pressed the ice against the roof of his mouth and sucked on the cold droplets that brought relief to his burning throat.

“Now to answer the obvious questions. You’re out of medbay because of the trauma you experienced from the bacta tank, and there was a fear that when you woke up, being there would trigger another panic attack. You’ve been asleep for the last ten hours. The blankets are from Chirrut and Baze.” K-2SO informed, shoving another ice chip in his mouth when Cassian tried to ask him a question. “I spoke with Dr. Ermino, and it appeared that the the tank had not been maintained for some time, and the tech responsible for doing a preliminary check was not very...thorough. Malfunction was inevitable, and it deserved to be destroyed.”

Cassian nodded slowly, then opened his mouth to be fed another chip. Kay put the bowl down on the side table, his processor softly whirring as it did during the rare occasions when he thought before he spoke. Cassian took a deep breath to prepare himself for what he could guess would be said next, but then he realized how easy it was to breathe so deeply now.

“Dr. Emino did want me to tell you that you weren’t in immediate danger--”

Cassian spat out his half-melted chip. “Not now.”

It was too late. In flashes he remembered being enveloped in that warm, gelatinous liquid, somehow able to breath but choking on the tube in his throat, like he was being swallowed alive with a life line. He’d rather drown than be digested, so he tried to rip off the breathing apparatus but his numb fingers couldn’t do it. His throat seized around the tube and suddenly he couldn’t even breathe, couldn’t make a sound as neon blue dissolved into black.

“Cassian!” Jyn cried, shaking him out of his memory. “Cassian, it’s all right.”

Like when she pulled him out of the tank, she stared at him with her glistening green eyes while calling out his name. He loved the way she said his name. He loved how the “s” in his name slipped off her tongue like silk.

“I’m so sorry, Cassian,” Jyn whimpered. “I should have busted that tank open when you were still sedated, but I trusted her, I trusted it would work and--”

He held the back of her neck and kissed softly, a gentle invitation. Her lips twitched in surprise, but she pressed her fingers along his neck and returned it, her teeth pulling on his bottom lip when she parted. He reached up for more of her softness, and she willing gave him more. His skin tingled as her lips dotted a trail up the ridge of his nose, curving over his eyebrow, then rounded his cheek to kiss his lips again.

She whispered, “I’m sor--”

He crushed her against his newly healed ribs and kissed her like he was starving. Her lips, her nose, her throat--he fisted a clump of her hair to hold her still as he consumed her burning flesh. He inhaled clean, crisp air into his lungs that didn’t choke on it. His body sang with a renewed energy that hummed in his muscles. He flipped her over and kissed her until she was breathless. Her legs crossed over his hip to push him down onto her briefs already damp. She ran her hands in his hair, but he took her wrists and pinned them to the mattress.

“This okay?” he whispered.

“Yes, yes, Cass,” she gasped.

He pressed her head down into the pillow as he kissed her, his hands clasped tightly enough around her wrists to feel her pulse. But as suddenly as the surge of energy rushed through him, it flooded out of him and left him exhausted and wondering where it came from in the first place, and all he could think of was being exposed in bacta for longer than he should, or the residual fear from the tank, or maybe a bit of both. He slipped to her side, splaying one hand over her rib cage while the other curled under her chin.

“It’s done,” he whispered, his voice and mouth still raw. “And you have nothing to apologize for. You were here when I woke up, you never left.”

“Never,” she exhaled.

Jyn struggled to keep her eyes open, but she smiled when Cassian pulled the covers they had knocked back in their scuffle up and over her shoulder. She rolled on her side and snuggled under his chin. He rubbed her back with his knuckles, making her hum with pleasure. Warm and sleepy, he held on to the one he loved most and miraculously, she loved him back, feeling like the luckiest man in the world.

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” he murmured.

Jyn hummed in response, her smile fading slightly as she fell asleep. His fist massaging her back softened as his eyelids drooped--

“Did you forget I was here?” K-2SO scoffed.

Both Jyn and Cassian jerked back awake to look up at the eight-foot security droid staring down at them from the side of their bed.

“Sorry, Kay,” Cassian mumbled. “Got a little carried away.”

“Jyn Erso is not the only one who cares about you, Cassian,” Kay said, sounding genuinely miffed.

“It’s true,” Jyn chimed in. “Kay carried you out of the observation room to hide you in your quarters and nearly had you out of medbay, but Dr. Emino convinced him to move you on a stretcher instead since that would be more inconspicuous.”

Jyn’s face darkened when she said Dr. Emino’s name, so Cassian teased her. “Are you saying you would have let Kay carry me out in nothing but my underwear, Jyn?”

She giggled behind her hands, her skin glowing pink. “It was sweet, like when you carry me to bed when I don’t want to get out of your lap.”

“Those are two distinctly different motives,” Kay whined.

“I appreciate your motive, Kay. Thank you,” Cassian said, feeling his last bit of energy fade.

“Noted. I will now go recharge facing a wall.”

Cassian snorted a laugh, then adjusted himself so his forehead could comfortably touch Jyn’s as they settled in to get some sleep. He closed his eyes so he could feel Jyn’s breath in his beard, his lips smiling along the curve of her cheek.

“See you in the morning,” Jyn whispered, and he knew he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated. <3


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